Beyond The Horizon
by Xerosic
Summary: After his loss in the Kalos League, Ash Ketchum, depressed, travels back to Pallet with Serena to attend Professor Oak's summer camp; The governments of many regions are pooling up their resources for Space Research and Pokémon/Man mission to the moon, and Team Galactic is after it. Ash Ketchum somehow gets tangled in it.


Hey, readers. Xerosic here, with a new story.

**Story Tags**: Pokémon, Space, Crime, Team Galactic, Romance, Tech, Sci-Fi, and possible Time Travelling.

**Timeline/ World: **Post Kalos League/ Mixed

**Characters: **Ash, Emma (she is a new character in Pokémon games), Paul, Kevin (OC).

**Shipping: **Ash x Emma (Alleyshipping) and others.

**Summary: **After his loss in the Kalos League, a depressed Ash Ketchum, travels back to Pallet with Serena to attend Professor Oak's summer camp. The governments of several regions are pooling up for a research Pokémon &amp; man mission on to the moon, and Team Galactic is after it. Ash Ketchum somehow gets tangled into it.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Journey to the Moon?**

* * *

A loud honk and with a jerk, the ship slowly started pulling out of harbour. From the platform, Clemont and Bonnie waved to the two teens on the ship.

"Good bye guys, see you again!" Serena waved back smiling. "Good Bye Clemont! See you again Bonnie!" yelled Ash faking a smile. The ship sailed out and soon the gym leader and his little sister were out of sight.

The sky slowly turned red, with only half the sun visible on the horizon. The raven haired trainer sprawled out his back by the pool. The cool sea breeze caused a momentarily shiver. But his mind was too preoccupied to feel the cold. The Semi-final of the Kalos League played back over and over again in his mind like a broken record.

"_That was great battle, but with his last Pokémon down, Ash Ketchum loses the match. Rubin Fletcher makes it to the finals!_"

"Pika pi" the electric mouse slowly called out to his trainer.

"I thought I'd win this league Pikachu." He said absent-mindedly, staring into the sky. "I mean, I trained my best in Kalos, taking lessons from the past leagues. But, it simply wasn't enough."

"Pika pika." He tugged his trainer's shirt pleading to stop thinking about it.

Just then he heard the footsteps of someone approaching him, "huh? Serena?" he looked at her.

"Hey Ash? They're serving dinner. Let's go eat." She suggested apprehensively. He stood up and walked in wordlessly.

"What's up with him Pikachu?" the young girl tilted her head.

"Pikaaa" the mouse replied with a confused look.

* * *

Serena looked at Ash's plate, which was still untouched. The said trainer was staring at it absent-mindedly, apparently thinking of something else. She waved her fork at him, "Hello! Earth to Ash! Anyone in there?"

"Ah!" he jerked up surprised. "Uh, sorry…" he apologized giggling sheepishly.

"What's up Ash? You looked so lost all the day?" she gave a pause, "are you still thinking about the match?"

"Yah, I've been thinkin' 'bout it."

Serena looked at his travelling companion sympathetically, "It's just one match silly. You'll win in the next league." She smiled, "Besides that Rubin guy was creepy. He used all legendary Pokémon. So, it's very natural that he over powered you. Train harder and I'm sure you will win next time."

He smiled. "Hehe…"

"What's funny?"

"I keep tellin' myself the every year…." He paused confusing the girl. "That I'll win next time. Just not sure when the next time will be."

"Well, Ash. Fact of the matter is that your opponent used legendaries. That's kind of illegal if you ask me…"

"Oh, I've defeated legendaries before."

She looked surprised.

"This happens to me every time," he continued, "I train hard the whole year, and loose in the end. I didn't even win single league till date, leaving Battle Frontier and Orange League, which weren't really leagues."

"Stop bashing yourself Ash."

"Look at me! I'm like seventeen years already. Seven years since I started as Pokémon trainer, and what've I got to show?" he looked at Serena hopelessly, "These battles, they won't feed me when I grow up. I don't even have a degree."

Serena smiled. "I heard Pokémon League rewards the trainers for every battle they win, isn't that true?"

Ash nodded, "They do, but not if the trainers I fight are rookies and beginners, I need to fight experienced trainers."

She looked confused.

Sighing, he looked at her seriously, "When you start out on a Pokémon journey, you start battling other trainers, and since you're just a beginner it's highly probable that your opponent is stronger. When and if you win over him, you get rewarded well and it helps you carry on your journey." Serena nodded her head, "But if you battle a weak trainer you don't get much."

"Why so?"

"It's the Pokémon League's way to prevent excess cash outflow and to encourage the beginners to get stronger by battling more experienced trainers."

"Well, since you lost….trainer like Rubin must be more experienced than you."

"May be, maybe not. But that doesn't matter, what matters is how experienced your new opponent is against the old opponents that you won over, and compared to the class of trainers I fought, trainers like Rubin are toothpicks. Brandon, Paul, Anabel, Drake, Noland. I need to fight the elite 4 now if I even want to get a dime."

"The elite 4!" she exclaimed. "Don't you think that's too much…right…now".

"Well, then I should quit and find and job."

Serena giggled.

"Huh?"

"It's just funny to see you talk about earning money….."

"Well, I'm getting older and all my mom and I have is our old house. She cannot feed me forever. I like Pokémon, Battles and all but I need to think about these things too."

Serena understood his anxiety. She too was about his age. But she didn't seem to be bound by the responsibilities as Ash did. She was accompanying Ash to Pallet Town, where they wound join Professor Oak's summer camp, not as students this time, but as his assistants.

* * *

"The fu** is this place?" a teenager exclaimed at the Pokémon watcher. Tall as Ash, he was fashionably dressed in sandy cargoes, dark blue round neck in shirt, and a grey hoodie. His body was well chiselled and his biceps shaped his hoodie. His unruly spiky hair added to his hot look.

He looked at the ranch through his ember computer glasses.

"Do you have to wear those glasses all the time?" Tracy asked.

"Got addicted to em' "

"How much?"

"Enough to make the dullness of reality look like shit without em'." He replied.

The Pokémon watcher cringed at the newcomer's usage of vocabulary. "You've gotta watch that language. It's not good for you."

"Shut the fuck up!"

He eyes fell on the Totodile dancing under the garden sprinkler. "Whose Pokémon is that? I like it."

"Oh," Tracy's eyes fell on the water type, "Totodile belongs to Ash Ketchum. Professor's protégé, who's gonna join you in the summer camp as an assistant."

He didn't seem to listen to Tracy at all. Eyes still on the water type, he murmured "Learn from that Pokémon Trace. Why can everybody be that carefree and happy?"

Tracy sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Not everybody takes life as you do Kevin."

* * *

Meanwhile in the trees of the thick forest cover part of the ranch a lone bulb walked briskly. It looked around for a moment and stopped. It then fired a few razor leaf onto a branch of the nearest tree. A razor sharp sound of chipping and flashes of leaf blade deflected the leaves back to the source.

Bulbasaur looked at his razor leaves float down to the ground. A bipedal lizard hopped down to the ground and chewed on his twig. _"Supp?"_

"_Ash arrives tomorrow," _with that Bulbasaur walked away. Sceptile smirked for a moment and hopped back to his branch on the tree.

* * *

"Where do you think you're going?" The Charisific valley caretaker asked sternly with her hands on her waist.

Charizard growled at Lisa, and pointed to as direction.

"Pallet?" her eyes softened. "What for?"

The pseudo dragon roared a reply.

"To meet Ash you say?" she mused. "Kay, have a safe trip….and be careful."

The fire type laughed out loud arrogantly.

"I'm not worried about your safety my friend," Lisa corrected, "I was talking about the other Pokémon you see en-route. Avoid unnecessary fights." She added sternly.

The fire type gave a thumbs and blasted off into the sky.

Lisa looked at the fire type already out of sight and sighed. Ash's Charizard was now the most powerful of all of its kind in the valley. The scarier part however was that Charizard was having trouble controlling its new strength. With every battle its strength was increasing exponentially and its skin tone was getting darker and flame whiter.

Was it good or bad? She never knew. But a Pokémon of that calibre losing control of itself every time it powered up sent shivers down her spine whenever she thought of it.

* * *

Somewhere in the ranch it was lunch time. Oak put the food trays for the Pokémon and wiped the sweat off his forehead, and sighed. Tracy and Kevin distributed the trays among Pokémon.

"Good work boys!" Oak grinned, "Thanks for helping me feed the Pokémon."

"That's what we're here for Professor." Tracy smiled.

Professor looked at Kevin and found him looking at the ranch speculatively. "What is it Kevin?"

"It got me thinkin' dude, that this habitat as you call it" he pointed with air quotes, "ain't natural. I mean you got the pool and stuff, but the fuck is this thing bout' feeding the Pokémon like dogs. Can't hunt down for themselves in the habitat?" he asked.

Oak grinned, "I like to take special care of them, as most of them belong to trainers who left them with me."

Kevin tasted a block from Quilava's bowl. His face contorted, "dafaq is this? Yuck, it tastes like shit!"

"Uh, that's Pokémon food son."

Tracy giggled.

"Gee, shut up Trace," he looked at the watcher scornfully, "Now where is that Totodile I saw yesterday?" He scanned around and found it dancing at the same fountain that he saw it under yesterday night. "Hey, little fella, been dancing there all night long?" he asked approaching the alligator.

"Cro-Cro…" the water type tilted his head for a moment before going back to dancing wildly.

He looked at the Pokémon's food bowl and surprisingly found it empty. "Hmm, that's strange…." He mused, "Hey Trace? Did ya put food in Totodile's bowl?"

"Yea, topped it to the full….why?"

"The bowl's empty dude."

"It must've eaten."

"Negative, it's been dancing non-stop."

Kevin and Tracy looked at other Pokémon and found their bowls empty too. Quilava, Totodile, Torkoal, Glalie, and every other Pokémon was looking confused at their empty bowls, confused. "That's strange…" Tracy commented, "Wonder what's going on."

"I think I know…" Kevin said pointing on the ground few yards away from them. A shark was digging its way to the bowls of Noctowl and Swellow. The shark dug from under the birds, and scared the shit out of them. It then gobbled the food in their bowls in single gulps.

The flying types sighed and flew away but one of them was fed up by this attitude of the childish Pokémon. It was time to end this, it thought. Swellow soared into the sky and dived like a jet to line up with Gible which was digging its way underground towards Heracross's bowl.

"Swell" It let out a hyper beam. The orange beam burnt the grass and rumbled the ground making the ground type pop out of it and fly into the sky.

The swallow Pokémon disappeared for an eye blink and reappeared in front of the airborne ground type, and next thing Gible knew was he was trashed into the ground by an aerial ace.

"That was some excellent flying." Kevin commented.

"Well, unlike many other Pokémon here, Swellow has always been training and keeping up its fitness." Oak said.

The said bird hovered in the sky above Gible and staring at him scornfully. The other Pokémon laughed at the ground type at its stupidity. Gible slowly stood up and got back to his senses, and looked at the Pokémon booing and laughing at him. He looked at Swellow in the sky with grudge in his eyes and glowed orange.

"Looked Professor, I think it's about to use Draco Me-" Tracy was cut-off, when it happened. The powerful dragon type attack soared into the sky above Swellow and broke into several blazing meteors.

"This is the first time Gible ever got Draco Meteor right outside a battle," Oak said. "It's pretty darn serious about this fight."

Swellow too understood the emotional gravity of the dragon type's seriousness. It began dodging the meteors skilfully, banking left and right with utmost concentration. The Pokémon on the ground looked stupefied as Swellow dodged every single speck from the Draco Meteor, a feat they thought impossible. Unexpectedly the ground/dragon dual type fired a green orb at the unsuspecting flying type.

"That's dragon pulse." Kevin commented, "Nice."

The pulse's energy caught the bird's attention. It countered the dragon type attack with a hyper beam and nullified it with some difficulty. The Pokémon on the ground cheered for Swellow's agility and skills to manage simultaneous attacks.

Unbeknown to them a certain ground/dragon type was getting jealous from the biased attention.

Swellow fluttered above the ground type and taunted him. Gible jumped up to bite its talons only to slip at the last moment when Swellow pulled up. It floated low again and taunted him. Gible tried again and again, only to realize that he was making a fool out of himself when saw other Pokémon laughed out loud.

Gible's body began to glow shining white. Swellow floated above looking confused. A few seconds later. Gible was replaced by a taller and relatively sharper looking Pokémon.

"Gabite!" it roared, and caught the stupefied bird's talons.

"It evolved!" Tracy and Oak looked wide-eyed at the ground/dragon type.

Swellow struggled for a second and used it talons to punch the dragon back to back with close combat and flew out of its reach. Gabite smirked, and Swellow smirked back. Gabite dashed for Swellow with lightning bolt speed.

Taken aback with the sudden increase in its opponent's speed Swellow couldn't dodge it and got tackled hard by Gabite. The flying type recovered soon and flew higher. Gabite steeped on the ground for a moment and dashed into the air vertically at bullet speed.

Swellow floated aside to dodge the dragon who shot higher up, and used and unleashed a dragon pulse straight at the flying type. Swellow took the hit and fell hard on the ground. Gabite dropped a few feet away from its opponent and readied a final dragon pulse.

Swellow lay there helpless unable to fly.

Just then Bulbasaur appeared. "Bulba!" the Ambassador commanded the dragon type to stop.

Gabite growled and directed the Dragon Pulse at the grass type and fired.

"Bulbasaur! Get out-of-the-way!" Professor Oak yelled.

Bulbasaur, stood steadily on the ground and prepared to brace the attack, but suddenly a slash destroyed the green orb of draconic energy. Sceptile appeared, with his signature twig in his mouth. The forest Pokémon dashed for the dual type, and with two clearly audible slashes of leaf blade, it cratered Gabite into a large boulder where it fainted.

"_That was close," _Bulbasaur grunted.

"_You're welcome, anyway what's with that guy?" _Sceptile said chewing on to its twig.

Bulbasaur gave back a '_don't know' _look.

* * *

The evening passed and few hours later, a black Mercedes stopped at Professor Oak's lab. A man in black suit accompanied by two body guards climbed up the steps to the lab, behind them were three more people. One of them was Gary Oak, and the other two were Professor Lund and his Son Tory Lund, all of them dressed in lab coats.

Gary knocked the door to the lab.

A few moments later Tracy opened the door. "Hey, Gary. The Professor's been expecting you."

Tracy served all of them some coffee.

"So, what do owe this please to?" Professor Oak asked smiling.

The official cleared his throat, "Uh, yes professor. As you already know, the governments of some of the regions, including Kanto have collaborated to establish space research."

"So, I heard."

"The aim of this research is to establish a deep space network and study the Pokémon from the space." The official added.

"We think that there are more Pokémon besides Deoxys that dwell outside earth," Gary added, "so they're planning to communicate with them, and if possible conduct Pokémon missions to space."

Professor Lund cleared his throat, "What do you think of this Samuel?"

Oak sniggered, "I for one am always enthused by new things like this. I'll help you in any way I can. But, don't you think Mosdeep Space research centre's already doing good research in the areas of space?"

"Yes, but there's a severe lack of think tank and funding, this project is funded by governments from all over the world." Lund continued, "So, our first aim is to put a Pokémon on moon and establish an inter-space teleportation system, which can send Pokémon and material to moon by teleportation."

"What that use of doing that?" Tracy popped in question.

Gary answered it, "See, Moons gravity is way lower than Earth, if we establish a Space Centre on moon, we can launch Pokémon space mission using space crafts at very low costs. Not much rockets needed and very less pollution."

Tory nodded, "and that also helps in building a better deep space communication system as there is barely any atmosphere on moon, unlike earth."

The government official who was silent the whole time talked, "We picked up some specialists to lead specific fields of work in this whole mission. Lund will work on Moon Base design and Research Centre establishment with his teams in Larrouse City, Tory is a specialist in communication systems, so he will lead a team to build a deep space network, meanwhile you can work on the teleportation system Oak."

Professor Oak nodded, "I can do that."

"That's all good," Tracy butted in, "How are you going to put the teleportation receiver on the moon at the first place?"

At this the official cleared his throat, "Factory Head Noland of the Battle Frontier is working on a space shuttle as we speak. He's the only one good with tech machines. Since Mosdeep Space Centre has never attempted a landing of moon, we're taking his help in the design of the space craft that powerful."

"So, you've included Frontier Brains in this?" Oak looked amused.

"Yes sir," the official replied, "Besides Noland, we have Brandon who's willing to head the Archaeological research on moon and Miss Anabel too volunteered to help us communicate with Pokémon when they're in space, using her powers, especially in the translation part."

Oak nodded.

"But, there is problem with this whole thing sir." The official added.

"What's that?"

"Team Galactic."

* * *

Ash and Serena stood on the cliff overlooking Pallet town. The late evening sky was shadowing the town but everything was visible to the duo. Serena sighed. "Nothing changes here huh," she said smiling. "I'm glad to be back for the summer camp again, but as an Instructor."

Ash giggle, "Yeah well, I still got some pictures of the summer camp we met when we were young. Maybe, you're in it."

"You do?" she looked at him wide-eyed.

"Professor sent most of the kids the photographs by post, he just didn't have your address."

The two teens ran their way on the mud path to the Pokémon center.

"We're here!" they busted in interrupting the meeting.

The government official looked at the teens surprisingly.

"Oops!" Serena covered her mouth sheepishly.

"Nice timing Ketchum," Gary cheered, "and who's that? You're girlfriend?"

"What?!" Ash and Serena yelped simultaneously.

"Ash Ketchum…." Kevin walked in from the ranch, "How do ya do muthafu***. Tracy talks bout' ya all the time."

Serena fainted and fell to the floor. Ash looked at Kevin stupefied. Gary face palmed. Tracy apologized sheepishly. "Sorry Ash," the watched said sheepishly, "He's my brother. Kevin Sketchit. He's always been like that."

"Nice to meet you Mr. Sketchit" Ash lied smiling.

"You don't have to be formal Ash, he your age," Tracy said, "Besides you can totally be good friends, he's a trainer, and winner of many Pokémon league tournaments, including Kanto."

Ash looked surprised.

Kevin rolled his eyes at Tracy's comments, "What's your name fine young lady?" he said kissing Serena on her hand.

"I-I'm Serena," she stuttered.

"Pleasure to meet you," he said, lifting her to her feet. "Can I treat you to dinner tonight at the nice inn round the corner? They're known for some of the delicious cuisines."

Her brain halted for a second as she searched for a reason to say no. She found none, "sure."

"Excellent."

"That was fast." Gary commented out loud, making the whole room laugh.

The government official coughed getting the old Professor's attention. The professor blinked, "Oh, Kevin, don't you wanna stay and listen to what we're talking."

"Uh, no thanks." Kevin, "I had enough of this space crap for today. GTG b'bye."

"Space?" Ash blinked at the professor.

"That's right Ash," Oak smiled, finding someone interested in their conversation, "take a seat and let me fill you up."

* * *

**A/n: **

Well, that's the end of first chapter. Did you like it? Leave a comment, it helps in many ways ;-)

For, those who oppose **Ash x Emma** pairing please tell me why.

I won't say I'll post the next chapter soon, cuz that's when I take a break for like eternity. Buuuuut, I'll post soon ;-) I may be as frequent as weekly.

**Signing Off**

**Xerosic**


End file.
